we didn't have to fall in love (we could've climbed down slowly)
by Exceeds Expectations
Summary: "I'm sorry," Remus whispers, and he has never said something so quietly and meant it so earth-shatteringly, heart-stoppingly, soul-crushingly loudly. /They are not who they used to be. Past!RemusSirius, post- PoA.


**A/N:** God, I can't write anymore. This took ages to get out. Apologies for ramblingness. I was just happy to get something on the bloody page.

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**Though lovers be lost love shall not; **

**And death shall have no dominion.****  
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_Dylan Thomas, _And Death Shall Have No Dominion

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When he was young, he fell in love with a boy and Remus can't ever forget that.

He fell in love with a boy with black hair and a Black smile, and on cold nights, when the others were still sleeping, Sirius would crawl into his bed and tangle his cold feet up in the blankets and bury his face in the slope between Remus' neck and his shoulder and that is what Remus will remember most. Because there is a difference between the boy – that ridiculous, wonderful boy – and the man who comes back.

The man who comes back is made up of angry, harsh lines. His skin is waxy and his eyes are shadows and his smile is tinged with a madness Remus has seen in so many Black smiles before, a madness Remus has seen destroy weaker men, a madness Remus never expected to find here.

The man who comes back... Well, Remus doesn't love the man who came back. Remus can't love him. He mourns the boy, he knows it. He mourns a living man because his bones don't quite know how not tremble when Sirius is around. Because his heart still leaps at the sound of that voice, because his body remembers the shape of Sirius' hands on his ribcage and his skin burns for those fingertips, for that kiss.

In the middle of the night, Sirius sneaks into Remus' room. He tiptoes like a crumbling wall, leaves a trail of _what are we doing _straight to Remus' bed. He looks sixteen again, though sharp-edged and dog-tired, but they don't tangle their legs in sheets or hook ankles around each other, not these nights.

No. The night is dark and dull and Sirius sits with his back against the cold wall and he cries. It is a violent cry, desperate sobs that carry memories on their flat, sharp planes, a broken sound that leaves fresh wounds on the hollow of Remus' heart. And Sirius doesn't look up, or stop, or care; he just cries for the boy he was and for the boys he lost and for Harry and for Lily and for the love he once had and for the man he has found again who isn't quite as he remembers – none of them are, Remus reasons, but Sirius is long past listening.

Remus doesn't touch him anymore. Can't bring himself to make this older, damaged Sirius a reality. He must be hard and cold as glass, feel like dead weight and broken bones, like twelve years of mistakes in the shape of old love. Instead, they sit side by side in the winter of this house. They listen to the shrieks of portraits of dead women with hate that lives on, and they listen to the soft breaths of sleeping heroes with love that's still trying to, and they don't listen to each other because there is nothing left to say, or hear, or _feel_.

On the nights when Sirius speaks, when Sirius won't stop speaking, Remus begins to remember the boy. The lost boy, the boy who never had a chance to grow up, the boy who must've died in Azkaban.

The man smiles, crooked and cruel, but something glimmers in his eyes. Something knowing. A twinkle of defeat, of acceptance.

He punches walls sometimes, hammers on doors until the fists are sore and bruised or bleeding. He breaks things, crushes glass in his hands and laughs when it slices his palms, holds blood-red lifelines out for Remus to fix, grins or cries or laughs or sobs because he's been caught redhanded again. He babbles and reminisces and rages and rants and vents and hates, _hates, _hates with a passion Remus has rarely seen, hates violently and unapologetically and hopelessly, in much the same way he used to love. He roars, screams, tears the lining of his throat with desperation and anger and pleas to no one. To everyone. He only lets Remus hear. Only wants Remus to hear, as if Remus is the only one who will understand. As if Remus is the only one.

During the full moon, when Remus takes the Wolfsbane and is still himself, whoever that is, Sirius sneaks in and transforms. Back then, Remus and the boy – _the boys_ – would roam forests and towns and run wild, reckless abandon and adrenaline-laced stupidity at the heart of their nights. These days, Padfoot growls at the wolf and the wolf growls back and it's almost as if they are admitting that they have lost everything. There is no pretence here, no civilised silence with its hollow echo and its hardened regret, no screaming or talking or wall punching or space in between them, because the wolf pounces and Padfoot is ready and they are biting and tearing at each other and they know who they are and they know what they're doing and they never aim to wound, just to hurt, to make understand, just to _bruise_ because that's all they have left.

In the mornings, they do not bring it up. They still do not touch. They drink tea from cracked mugs in the dank kitchen and are painfully, soullessly quiet. Remus hears the unsaid apologies that drift between them. He ignores them, turns the pages of the _Prophet _loudly and carelessly. He stares at the page without reading a thing until Sirius stands to leave, goes to feed Buckbeak or scream at his mother or cry over the graveyard of his bedroom; only then does Remus let himself breathe, cry, _think._

When Sirius dies, there is a storm of relief and guilt and love and hatred that swells in Remus' chest. It boils and bubbles until it is a hellstorm, a burning swirl of emotion that breaks down everything Remus remembers and dreams and feels. It's poison, this storm, blurring every happy memory with the face of madness and shadowed eyes and Remus tries so hard to remember the boy, the boy, the boy and the way his icy fingers would tremble, tucked tight in Remus' hands, the way his laughter caught in his throat and came in bursts and barks, the way the scent of him was easier to breathe than the low smoke of a crackling fire, than freshly cut grass, than summer air. Remus remembers the boy, his face pressed to the slope between Remus' neck and his shoulder, and he weeps for the man. The man who remembered all of this, remembered Remus, and didn't know quite how to make it all better.

"I'm sorry," Remus tells the silence, because he knows if anyone can hear him, could ever hear him now, it is Sirius, the boy, the man, the soul, the lips that ghosted across gooseflesh and scars and bloodied knuckles, the hands that soothed anger and grief and rattled around prison bars for far too long, the eyes that were happy then sad then angry then empty, Sirius_, _who wouldn't let Remus touch him for fear they would shatter like glass, _Sirius_, who never said as much but didn't need to.

Sirius, who fell in love with a boy when he was young and never, ever forgot.

"I'm sorry," Remus whispers, and he has never said something so quietly and meant it so earth-shatteringly, heart-stoppingly, soul-crushingly loudly.


End file.
